Pastoral imagery in The Merchant of Venice

Abstract

This essay examines the range of reference that lies behind two particular passages in Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice: in 1.3, Shylock’s invocation of an episode from the thirtieth chapter of Genesis, “When Jacob grazed his Uncle Laban’s sheep,” and at the crisis of the contest between Shylock and Antonio, in 4.1, Antonio’s rather puzzling line of resignation, “I am the tainted wether of the flock.” Through a consideration of contemporary biblical commentary, literary, religious, and political allegory, in addition to a range of allied visual material, the essay seeks to widen the context of reception of the play by its first audiences. Not only were they familiar with pastoral tropes and visual signs to do with civic, national, and religious order, often presented in the streets of London, but also with a moralized line of interpretation of the Jacob legend through the popular media of illustrated catechisms, and prints deriving from them. As illustrated exempla of the commandments both Jacob and Daniel, the last invoked as a model of the good judge in 4.1 of the play, were familiar referential figures in the 1590s. The essay concludes with a consideration of the allegory of the fourth act, suggested by Antonio’s line, the denigration of Shylock as “wolvish,” and by Portia’s position as the invoker of mercy, once more connected with contemporary iconography.